NOT only Pakistan but the whole of South Asia is under the sway of the English language. Local languages, including Urdu, have suffered a setback in consequence. However, Urdu can claim to have compensated this loss to a certain degree by making inroads into the very homeland of English, and into so many other cities of the Western world. In recent decades, its expansion in those lands has been rapid, so much so that Urdu has now come to stay as the main medium of expression with the South Asians settled there. This situation has, in particular, given a boost to the institution of mushaira.
I was under the impression that if Urdu had made its mark in the field of culture and literature in the settlers’ world of the West, it is more in the form of mushaira. But Syed Ashoor Kazmi’s two volumes, which deal with the expansion and promotion of Urdu in the West, tell a different story. Ignoring the mushaira and the Urdu poets of the settlers’ world, he has chosen to give an account of Urdu prose as it has flourished in the West. These two volumes are: Bisween Sadi Kay Urdu Nasr Nigar (Maghribi Duniya Mein) and Bisween Sadi Kay Urdu Akhbarat-o-Rasail (Maghribi Duniya Main). Both these volumes have been published by the Institute of Third World Arts and Literature of UK.
If Ashoor Kazmi has ignored poets in his tazkara, he has reasons for it. As is evident from his preface to the first volume, he is unhappy with the ways poets behave in those lands. He finds the world of poetry around him swarming with fake poets engaged in self-promotion. Most of them are newcomers. And each newcomer, as Kazmi tells us, stages his entry with three or four collections of verse under his arms. And each collection carries with it three or four prefaces. Preface writing has, according to him, turned into a big business. In consequence, we have a mass production of prefaces.
Add to them the interviews of these poets published in the literary pages of the Urdu dailies of Pakistan. The columnists doing this kind of job are duly rewarded. They are invited and warmly welcomed in those lands as the most representative poets from Pakistan.
Ashoor Kazmi, in disgust, turned his back on these poets and decided to pay attention to the prose writers. The prose writers, just by giving the impression of being a different breed as compared to the poets, succeeded in winning favour from him.
So, we have here a full account of writers who are settled in different cities of Europe and America, and are engaged in the act of prose writing in Urdu. Along with them those Western scholars, too, will be seen accommodated here who are engaged in the research and critical studies of Urdu literature, though they write in English. So we have Ralph Russell, David Matthews and Dr Ludmilla Vassilave. But some important names such as Francis Pritchett are missing.
But Ashoor Kazmi has one big surprise in store for us. It is not surprising to find Ghulam Abbas, Mushtaq Yusufi, and Ibn-i-Insha categorized as settler-writers. In fact, Kazmi has, out of generosity, tried to accommodate in this company even those writers who, for one reason or the other, spent some years or even some months in any of the Western cities. However, some writers, in spite of their long stay in the West, escaped the notice of Ashoor Kazmi and so could not be accommodated in this tazkara. Dr Ebadat Barelvi and Pitras Bukhari are two such instances. In case of Dr Ebadat, it may be pointed out that prior to his visit to London he was known purely as a critic. His research work owes much to his stay in London where he was associated with the School of Oriental Studies.
One more thing needs to be mentioned. This account of prose writers is not confined to only those writers who are engaged in literary writings. Writers engaged in journalistic writings have also been included here, making a category of their own.
Apart from this inclusion of journalist writers in this volume, a separate volume has been devoted to the study of the origin and development of Urdu journalism in the West.
Ashoor Kazmi has traced the beginning of Urdu publishing in the West from the year 1743, when in Germany Benj Schulzio’s book offering “a summary of Christian beliefs in Hindustani” was published. In 1920, a group of Indian students started publishing an English journal, Hind, which included a few pages of Urdu. However, the first Urdu paper was the Weekly Mashriq, London, which took a start in 1961.
Ashoor Kazmi has shown diffidence in giving credit to Enayatullah for this. In fact, Enayatullah was the first to conceive the idea of starting an Urdu paper from London. After establishing the daily Mashriq in Lahore, he had planned to start an Urdu weekly under the same name from London. It started under the editorship of Mahmood Hashmi.
Now, we have a large number of dailies and weeklies published from different cities of the West. They have all been detailed in this volume.
NOT only Pakistan but the whole of South Asia is under the sway of the English language. Local languages, including Urdu, have suffered a setback in consequence. However, Urdu can claim to have compensated this loss to a certain degree by making inroads into the very homeland of English, and into so many other cities of the Western world. In recent decades, its expansion in those lands has been rapid, so much so that Urdu has now come to stay as the main medium of expression with the South Asians settled there. This situation has, in particular, given a boost to the institution of mushaira.
